


Hybrid

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: AU, Animalistic, Captivity, Hybrids, I don't know what I'm doing, My First Work in This Fandom, Other, will add more tags as they become relevant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-06-16
Updated: 2012-06-18
Packaged: 2017-11-07 21:55:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/435865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is Karkat Vantas, and you are commonly known as Subject 193-B. You hate this name. You hate your cage, your cagemates (not really), and your life. You hate the humans who have taken your life away.</p><p>((AN: Fixed Chapters 2 + 3, AO3 decided to be a bitch earlier. But yeah, now Chapter 2 is in the right place! Sorry 'bout that.))</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> bear with me, i have no idea what i'm doing and i have no idea how to work this.

Your name is  Karkat Vantas , and you are commonly known as  Subject 193-B . You hate this name. You hate your cage, your cagemates (not really), and your life. You hate the humans who have taken your life away.   
  
You  once lived in a peaceful land, full of creatures of all shapes and sizes, colors and ways of life. You loved your forest, your old friends and the cave you called home.   
  
The humans took that away from you. With their machines and their power, they outmatched your abilities and numbers. They took you away. They took everything away.   
  
You are a hybrid, like many of the species on this planet. You’re a mutt. Snake and crab, mostly, you think. From the scales covering your arms and hands and torso, to the tail where legs would be, nubby horns poking out from your black hair, and useless claws attached to your wrists, you are a lusus naturae to them. A freak of nature. They call you a monster in hushed voices, from what you can understand of their language. They talk about you more than your cagemates. They say your tests run badly, that you don’t appear to have any skills useful to them, that you should be culled.   
  
They don’t understand.


	2. >Be Current Subject 193-B.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> whoops

>Be Current Subject 193-B.

You wake up with a throbbing pain in your skull (it’s not exactly easy to sleep with your appearance) and it doesn’t seem any of your mates are awake. John and Sollux (or Subjects 193-A and 193-C), you’ve learned their names are. John used to be human. You have also learned that as criminal punishment, they turn the culprits into hybrids themselves. You have never figured out what exactly he did to deserve his punishment. His long rabbit ears jut out from his head, covering his eyes as he sleeps, feline tail curled around him. You call him a rabbicat.

Sollux, on the other hand, sleeps curled in on himself, tail so much like your own wrapped around himself. He’s a naga, and his eyes are mesmerizing red and blue orbs. You’ve grown fond of the idiocy of both of them, and you often wonder what the scientist think of them. Probably much fonder than they think about you.

You snap out of your thoughts as the loudspeaker calls out, “Subject 193-B for testing in Puzzle Room A,” the workers on their early morning shifts immediately unlocking the door to your cage, sending a very mild wave of electrocution through your body from the shock collar around your neck, ordering you in their strange English to come with them. Seems you’re first today. You get up quickly with a groan, slithering out, and one locks the cage door behind you, the other two leading you to Puzzle Room A once again, for another day of torture.

>Subject 193-A: Wake up.

You are now Subject 193-A (aka John Egbert), and you and Subject 193-C (aka Sollux Captor) have just been awakened by the loudspeaker calling the first subject to testing. After gaining your bearings, you realize Karkat is not where he usually sleeps. You guess he is doing something, probably just the first to be called. They seem to enjoy picking him to be first.

>Think about yourself while Sollux stops being half-asleep.

You already think about yourself a lot, but whatever, can do, mysterious voice in your head. You are John Egbert, 17 and a half years old, and you are some sort of rabbit/cat/whatever hybrid or something. You were used for scientific testing like this after being arrested with some of your friends. You’re known for your sometimes violent protesting. Or were, anyways. You know Dave (Subject 203-B) and Jade (Subject 398-C) are amongst the groups of cages, but you still don’t know the location of Rose. You hope she’s okay.

You would rather be a normal human than a weird hybrid, but you can’t say you don’t enjoy the company of your cagemates. What you do not enjoy, however, is being treated like an animal (even though you are not really human anymore) because that is just plain rude. You are not a dog! No offense to anyone who is a dog.

>Sollux: Prod John to get him to pay attention to you.

You have been attempting to get John’s attention with other means for a few minutes now. He sure loves thinking about himself, huh.

John blinks, turning to look at you.

“What?”

“In cathe you didn’t notithe, KK’s been gone for longer than uthual. Thtill too busy thinking about your obviouth cruth on him?” You smirk at him, lisping clear as usual. You find it impossible to spend a day without bugging him about that. He hasn’t told you that information, of course, but the way his tail curls and face tinges red when you the topic of the crabby hybrid come up sends the oh-so-clear sign. As if a neon sign reading, “Flushcrush on Mister Nubbyhorns” is placed conveniently behind him.

You don’t know what a neon sign is, or what said text would look like, because A) you learned the neon sign thing from John and B) you can’t read. Rabbicat is the only one in your cage that can read. In fact, only a select few members in all of the cages can read. Consider yourself lucky.

And speaking of Mister Nubbyhorns, you can’t help but wonder what’s taking him so long. Perhaps he just took a while in target practice or a maze or something, or perhaps he’s getting yet another behavioral chip installed in him. Or... culling. You almost frown at the thought of never seeing your friend again. Almost. You’re skilled in the art of pokerfacing, as John calls it. Poker sounds like a stupid game. You wonder if they just poke each other or something of the like.

>Be Karkat again.

You can’t be Karkat, because Karkat is busy navigating a labyrinth!

>Be Rose or something.

You can’t be Rose either, because Rose is asleep!

>Be Jade?

You can be Jade.

You are now Jade Harley, aka Subject 398-C, and you dislike this cramped cage. Also, you dislike Nepeta. Not because she’s mean or bossy or anything, but because she is a cat and you would chase her if this stupid cage wasn’t so small. And if there wasn’t a centaur in here with you.

Actually, you don’t know if someone that’s part bull is a centaur or not. Either way, your bull pal Tavros Nitram (Subject 398-A) has huge horns that are currently in your face to keep you away from Nepeta. You feel like you could be Catdog or something from those old cartoons. Except you would clearly be the cat, because Cat is much smarter than Dog.

Therefore you are much smarter than Nepeta.

Clearly.


	3. >Karkat: Avoid deadly snakes.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we be Karkat for a while before examining Dave's cage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a really short chapter whoops
> 
> (ps i promise i'll work on writing less jumpy and quick)
> 
> also oh my god AO3 was being really stupid so now the ACTUAL chapter 2 is back
> 
> uh
> 
> yeah???
> 
> i'm sorry

>Okay, being Jade is boring. Can we be  Karkat  yet?  
  
Fine, just stop being so fickle. Geeeeez.  
  
>Karkat: Avoid deadly snakes.  
  
You  are now  Karkat Vantas  and speaking Parseltongue is of no use to you when the venomous snakes slithering after you can’t speak it themselves. What kind of snake can’t speak Parseltongue? A shitty snake is who.  
  
But this isn’t exactly the best time to be thinking about snakes and their languages when you’re  almost there and you know the finish is probably booby-trapped but you don’t really care because you just want out and back to your cage and you really wish you got things that were more of a puzzle and less than an Indiana Jones-style temple run.  
  
You ’re just about to cross the finish when you trail over a clearly tampered-with tile, and a claw falls from the ceiling, attaching itself to the end of your tail before you can pry it off, effectively retracting itself enough to suspend you upside-down. ...Just above the snakes. You give the watching cameras a pair of extended middle fingers, as well as shouting a stream of choice curses at them before looking down into the eyes of about a dozen snakes of varying colors.  
  
This was such a terribly obvious trap that  John  could’ve set it.  
  
It might be awhile before you can wriggle yourself out.  
  
> Be Dave while  Karkat  is occupied.  
  
You  are now Dave Strider , Subject 203-B . Waiting for this morning’s subject to come out, you stretch your wings as much as you can without hitting one of your roomies in the face. Which isn’t very much, ending up brushing your wing-tips against  Gamzee  a little, but you doubt he really minds. He’s not too bright.  
  
Your other roomie,  Aradia , isn’t as bad. She’s quiet for the most part, but she always looks depressed, which doesn’t exactly help the mood.  
  
Gamzee  belongs in the aquatic room, you think. After all, hello, that weird fish tail there? The gills? Who decided he needed to be in the landdwellers’ room? Then again, everyone else in the aquatic room is probably a lot smarter (not a guano-for-brains) than he is. It’s a surprise he hasn’t been culled to make room for another captive yet.  
  
Aradia  is pretty cool. Part ram, you’d say, judging by the horns. A real cutie if she wasn’t always frowning and making weird ram noises, or talking about how doomed we all are, or something. She’s a weirdo.  
  
>Examine self.  
  
You ’re getting to that. You’re an avian hybrid of some sort. Not entirely sure what sort of avian. The only birds you really know about are crows, and it would majorly suck if you were half-crow. Talk about lame. So lame it wouldn’t even be ironic.  
  
Either way, you would never admit to anyone how flawed you feel like this. If anything, you should’ve at least been spared your hands. You wish you had hands instead of claws. You wish you didn’t have wings or a beak.  
  
You wish you never associated with  John Egbert.


End file.
